


A little more conversation, a little less action, please

by avengersandco



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, more like just hurt feelings rather than angst but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avengersandco/pseuds/avengersandco
Summary: Tony is worried about catching feelings with his friends with benefits. Steve isn’t quite on the same page as him though.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	A little more conversation, a little less action, please

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misomilk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misomilk/gifts).



> Happy Holidays everyone! This fic is for misomilk and the prompts I used were “stop staring at me” and “so... this is where it ends?” I hope you like it!
> 
> And the title is a play of an Elvis song!

Tony couldn't be sure how this happened

How he had ended up in Steve’s bed. Again.

Which actually wasn’t true, Tony knew exactly it had happened. Being friends with benefits made it kind of hard to not end up in bed with Steve.

Tony knew being friends with benefits was a bad idea. He knew it was a bad idea and yet he was the one who had pursued it. The one who kept flirting with Steve, but saying he didn’t want a relationship. Then insisted that they don’t tell the rest of the team, because “that might mess with dynamics and shit like that.” Now he was the one who had caught feelings and had to figure out what to do about them. Why did he always go for things he knew were dumb?

That wasn’t really important at the moment though. What was important was that he was staring at a sleeping Steve after having spent the night. In and of itself, having spent the night with Steve wasn’t a bad thing. They were friends with benefits after all. The issue was, that they hadn’t even had sex last night.

Tony was supposed to go out with Rhodey and Pepper the night before. He had made it out with them even, but he got a text around 9:30 pm from Steve, asking if he wanted to come over. Normally, Tony has been trying to convince himself, he’d have said no and continue to spend time with his friends. But Steve had just gotten back from a week- long mission earlier that day, and Tony missed him.

“You’re ditching us for them and you still won’t tell us who it is?” Rhodey had complained.

“I’m not ditching you guys. We said dinner and drinks. We had dinner, and now we’re just wrapping up drinks.” As Tony said that, he shot back the rest of the whiskey he had to finish it, though it was a little tough with the large ice cube still in it.

“It has been months Tony,” Pepper reminded him, “It’s obviously something and we just want to know the person.”

“It’s nothing,” he insisted. “It’s probably not going to last much longer anyway.”

“Why?”

How was he supposed to explain it to them? They were the ones who always warned him against friends with benefits. His friends knew that he fell too hard too fast for friends with benefits to be a good idea for him. But he went and did it anyway, and with a teammate no less. A teammate who was starting to show interest in Sam, yet another teammate, a new one that Steve had brought on no less. Tony needed to get his head out of his ass and break it off, but he didn’t want his friends knowing about that.

“No reason. Enjoy the rest of your night and I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

It didn’t take long for Tony to end up back at the tower on Steve’s floor. Steve looked tired when Tony walked in, but something in his eyes seemed a bit different when he noticed Tony. He suggested a ‘netflix and chill’ type thing, so they crawled into Steve’s bed, threw on a movie, and cuddled until the mood hit.

Except, the mood never really hit. Every once in a while one of them would make a comment about the movie, or they’d readjust how they were positioned, but otherwise they were simply enjoying each other's company. They had even gotten partway through a second movie before Tony noticed that Steve had fallen asleep, his arms still wrapped around Tony’s waist.

Now, hours later, Tony was lying in Steve’s bed, thinking about his dilemma. Thinking about the easiest way to break things off.

“Mmmm, stop staring at me.” 

Tony actually hadn’t been staring at Steve, just zoned out towards Steve’s face, but his warm sleepy voice pulled Tony back to focus, setting sights on the enigmatic smile on Steve’s face. And that made Tony panic.

“I have to go.” Tony got up quickly and started to grab his clothes off the floor to avoid looking at Steve lying in the bed.

“Wait, what?” In

“I have to go. This was dumb. This whole thing.”

“Tony wh-

“Everything. Just not my best idea. My bad. I ca-“

“Can yo-“

“n’t keep doing this. I’m so sorry.”

Tony had opened the door and was about to walk out when he felt someone grab his hand. He turned to see Steve’s face, narrowed eyes and a deep frown.

“So…. this is where it ends, huh?”

“Steve,” Tony groaned, “it has to. I can’t keep doing this anymore.”

There was a pause between them. Steve didn’t let go of Tony’s hand, but Tony also made no move to try and pull away.

“Can we at least talk about it first? Please?”

“I don’t th-“

“For the team,” Steve interrupted. “They’re gonna know something’s up between us and we should be on the same page about what we tell them.”

He didn’t want to admit it, and he sure as hell didn’t want to have this conversation, but Tony knew Steve was right.

“Fine. But can we at least put some clothes on first. I don’t really want to have this conversation when we’re only in our boxers.”

Steve chuckled. “Of course. I can put some coffee on as well if you’d like.”

Tony nodded as he finally pulled his hand away from Steve, pulling it into his chest, wondering if that was going to be the last affectionate touch he’d get from Steve. He watched as Steve turned away and went to go put on clothes, and then quickly exited when Tony realized that it was a little weird to watch the person you were essentially breaking up with, get changed one last time.

Ten minutes later, Steve was bringing two cups of coffee from the kitchen to the living room couch. Tony was curled up in one of the corners, trying his best to be consumed by the couch. 

“Thanks,” Tony mumbled as he reached out to grab the coffee being handed to him. A little bit of cream and two sugars, just the way he liked it first thing in the morning.

Steve sat on the other end of the couch, trying to focus more on his coffee than on Tony. They sat in silence, neither really sure where to start.

“Is it something I did?”

“What?” Tony wasn’t really sure what response he was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

“Did I do something? To make you not want to do this anymore? Or make you think I didn’t want it anymore?”

“Friends with benefits never lasts Steve.” And Tony could cry as he watched Steve’s face crumble before his eyes.

“Friends with benefits?”

“Yes. That’s what we talked about when all of this first started. Just sex. No feelings or anything like that. And last night definitely fell into the latter category.”

“I mean, you’re right, but I kind of thought we had moved past that.”

Tony stared at Steve, trying to figure out what he meant. He couldn’t possibly mean that they at some point had moved on to something more, but Tony couldn’t think of what else Steve could have meant. He might be dumb but he wasn’t that dumb.

“Moved past what? The just sex?”

Steve nodded and Tony couldn’t sit still any more during this conversation. Steve stayed sitting, while Tony got up and started pacing, looking anywhere but at Steve, while Steve looked only at Tony.

“And what made you think we were past that? We never talked about it!”

“It’s been six months Tony, it just kind of felt like it had mo-“

“Six months of no conversations about anything more and us still doing our own thing.”

“We weren’t really doing our own thin-“

“It’s not like we were exclus-“

“Wait a second I never saw anyone else outside of you.”

“THEN WHY THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN FLIRTING WITH SAM FOR THE PAST TWO MONTHS.”

Both stared at each other in silence, Tony trying to deep breathe to calm himself. He didn’t want to push Steve away. He wanted to be with Steve, but so much information was being thrown at Tony, it was taking him a little while to process. Steve eventually got up from the couch and walked closer to wear Tony was, and grabbed both of his hands.

“Tony I promise, I was not flirting with Sam. And whatever I did to make you think I was, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.”

Tony could tell Steve was trying to catch his eyes, but he was feeling petulant and refused to look at them.

“You guys were always so touchy and laughing with each other. You barely know him.”

“I know I haven’t known him long, but we connected really fast. I don’t really know a lot of people who are military and don’t automatically think of me as Captain America.” Tony moved to interject, but Steve stopped him. “That wasn’t a dig at you. I know you don’t think of me as Captain America first, but having other people like that is nice as well.”

“Well you might not have been flirting with him, but he was definitely flirting with you.”

“I promise you he wasn’t. Sam’s just one of those super friendly and affectionate people.”

“How ca-“

“He’s straight as an arrow and has his eyes set on someone else. I promise you, he hasn’t been flirting.”

He didn’t want to admit it, but he could kind of understand where Steve was coming from now. Tony did find it strange at first how talkative the guy could be, as well as how much he touched other people. Always in a respectful way, but still.

“I guess I should have talked to you about it instead of just letting that fester,” Tony said, finally willing to make eye contact with Steve, who just shrugged. 

“We both could have talked more and communicated better. I should have talked to you about being more instead of just assuming we were.”

“Got a bit too caught up in the sex part I guess,” Tony said, which made Steve start to laugh. At first Tony didn’t mind, but he started to get a little offended when Steve kept going.

“You don’t need to mock me Steve, I’m right.”

“I know you are,” Steve said, trying to rein in the laught, “What you just said made me think of a really dumb thought, and I’m still tired from the mission yesterday.

Tony paused a second, waiting for Steve to fill him in.

“We literally just said we needed to be better about communication and you aren’t gonna share?”

“First a more important question. Are we more, or are you still done with me?” Steve asked. “I think I know the answer, but not asking explicitly already bit me in the butt once today. I don’t really want it to happen again.”

Tony smiled, “Yeah I think we’re more. I wanna be more than just a booty call. I wanna be yours.”

Steve smiled as well at that and leaned in to give Tony a kiss.

“So,” Tony said as he pulled away, “What was the joke?”

“I think this joke is gonna be our number one rule,” Steve explained, “but I think Elvis was wrong. We need a little more conversation and a little less action to make this work.”


End file.
